University Road Race

Ah, University. As a simpleton racer, this is a race I can actually train for. It goes up, then it goes down. I usually like that kind of thing. Things started in earnest, with Menso de Jong rolling off the front repeatedly, and Chris marking him early on in the race. The pack reeled them in several times before Menso finally broke the elastic and rode away from everyone in true pro MTBer style. Chris followed after him, but got reeled back in one last time. Somehow, I managed to remember to drink without him there to remind me, but from now on I'm gonna have "god, do I have to mother you?" stuck in my head in Chris's voice.

Like I said, I'm simple racer, so I followed some simple rules for the rest of the race: coast up to the front on the descent, drift back on the climb, and never stand on the kicker unless absolutely necessary. I closed gaps where necessary as attrition really set in after 10 laps, but basically sat in pretty comfortably thanks to all the work Chris was doing off the front.

With only Menso long gone off the front for the last few remaining laps, not too much was going on in the pack. I managed to drop my chain and had to do a pretty hard effort to chase back on, but even that was fairly uneventful. I repeated my simple plan and thought about what I was going to try to do on the last lap. Somehow, I got it in my head that it would be a fantastic idea to launch a sprint from the corner, about 2 minutes from the finish line. Unfortunately, a rider from Cyclepath had already cleared the group by the last corner when I wasn't paying attention, so it was a race for third. I attacked hard up the left side right after the corner, looked Chester from Platinum square in the eye and we were off. I led out for the last 1.5 min, then Chester came around me for 3rd near the line; I held my position for 4th. We almost caught the Cyclepath guy, so I can't say I made the wrong choice, just not the best. Glad I was able to hold on for so long given my early "sprint" start!

I stuck around to cheer on the 4/5 and women's fields, then had a great lunch in SC before heading home.

Legs are finally coming around, so I'm looking forward to at least Challenge and Everest later on this year.

Patterson Pass

Patterson Pass was my first race as a 3 last year. It's a hard man race, and I don't really belong to that category of rider. This year there was no wind so the climb was extremely selective. Being my first real race back in a long time, I hung in until the 3rd lap then got dropped as the heat and pace got to me. I soft pedaled to the top, caught a bunch of riders going back to the finish and slotted in at 12th. Nothing much else to report except that it was HOT. No water at the finish this year so I was parched by the time we stopped at the first gas station to BUY water. I'm not at all a believer in buying something that comes virtually for free from a tap, so it was a painful move for me to buy a liter of water and some V8 to replace all the salt that was all over my kit and face. Good stuff.

I got a new power meter. I have two sets of nice wheels, but since I'm a geek, I rarely use them so I can get power data from races. This, of course, being suboptimal, needed to stop, so when Quarq released their compact Cinqo, I jumped on it. I'd been saving the money since March, when I originally thought they were going to release it, so even though it's an expensive toy, it didn't hurt too badly. The first one broke on me during my crazy ride of the year (3x Diablo with Everest Challenge teammates) but Quarq's customer service came through in two big ways:

1) they answered email on a Saturday. They have this funny habit of apologizing for answering late, you know, because 2 hours is a long time to wait for help. I'm used to vendors taking forever, so I'm already impressed.
2) they overnighted a new crank to me. I barely missed using it. Awesome.

The Cinqo and powertap agree very well. I have Tukey mean-difference plots to prove it, but those who actually read this already know I'm a dork so I won't plot that here. I will, however, update you on how I measured my drag coefficient and rolling resistance in the next post.

Leesville

Yeah, so that was interesting. Woke up with a stiff back that didn't want to loosen up and beat it with a stiff carbon frame across some beautiful dirt roads in Northern California. Break a few parts, lose some water and finish on the most god-awfully boring roads I've ever seen and call it a day. Probably not doing this one again. Basically, after breaking my power meter and getting a rock in the knee, I sat up and rode it home.

Good to get out in a fast pack again, and the damage wasn't anything a soldering iron couldn't fix.

Long Time No Post

Been away from racing for a while. I'm nursing our bird Kang right now and don't really think I can get out to race. It's amazing how such a little bird can work his way into our family and be so important. I'm still riding, so come Cal Cup time, I'll bring a full summer's worth of training to the races.

Arthur

Our adopted budgie checking out the camera:

Berkeley Hills 2009

Arg. I started this race feeling like garbage again. Legs moved OK but my head was full of snot once again. I can't wait for summer so everything will just go and die. I wasn't having any problems sticking with the pack and started to think I actually had a chance when a crash separated me from the field. I turned around to check on my teammate who also went down and he told me to go for it. I tried, but my bike was skipping gears. I stopped and tried to straighten the wheel, but it turned out my derailleur hanger was bent. Unfortunately, this was at the top of the course, so I had to chase back on with a two minute gap.

I nailed the descent (why can I go faster on my own?) and drilled it down Camino Pablo, where I could finally see the field and all of the minor attacks rolling off the front. Head down, I cranked away. Finally, I got to a line of cars and used the draft to get myself back on. Now I was tired.

The last time up the main climb, I thought I should mitigate the damage and just go hard. That was a mistake - I should have gone all out. What's to lose? Anyway, finished up 20th or so of 60. I feel really good about getting back on with a flat/downhill TT (at <135 lbs, I don't go all that fast on the flats) but am disappointed with my mental performance where it really counted. Lessons learned.

For a change of pace, I think I'll do the Sonoma 100 km mountain bike race this weekend. I've been surprised at my ability to recover recently, so hopefully it won't impact Mt Hamilton.

Wente RR, 2009

I had to miss this race last year due to injury, and was really looking forward to a large-field tough race. Mark, Eliot and Bernhard provided some really valuable pre-race recon as I had no idea what to expect. I decided to remove all the distractions I could from my race: I raced with a simple bike computer and don't think I looked at it once. I also tried my new wheels - after racing on open pros and powertaps for so long, my 2 lbs lighter bike seemed like a brand new ride.

I lined up congested (allergies?) and feeling generally lousy (they need more lazy afternoon start times for us recovering mountain bikers,) but luckily it wasn't too hard up the climb the first two times. Brad was extremely active at the front while I basically sat in trying to clear the snot out of my head. On the fourth time up, a break of twelve had made it up the road, so Grant from Pen Velo and I drilled it on the climb and caught them by the finish. My head was finally clearing so I started to think about doing something beyond just finishing.

The last lap was aggressive and fast, and another Pen Velo guy made it up the road and away while the moto ref neutralized what was left of the field. Oh well, racing for 2nd now. I made my way near the front coming up to the turn up the climb and hit it hard when we made the turn, first chasing down a few riders, then making a newbie mistake by sprinting for the first tent I saw. Luckily, I didn't let up too much and kept going when I realized it wasn't the finish- and that sprint put me well off the front, or so I thought. I turned the corner for the real finish and saw one other guy from my field that I couldn't catch, nor had I seen him roll off the front, for third place. Still working on that race awareness.

Here's a picture of my bike in race garb:


I have to say gluing your tires on is a unique experience. The wheels are pretty nice, but I think I might need to drill out a bit more for the valve stems.

This weekend in Berkeley Hills, then I think I'm going to do the So No Mas 100 because I haven't had enough instant weight loss this year. And I haven't ridden my MTB in over a month, so I figure 8 hours in one shot should make up for that.